Academic literature on the topic 'Cabaret songs'

The Chop Suey Circuit describes Asian American cabaret performers who toured the US from the 1930s through the '50s. Performing the era's popular songs and dances, these “Orientals” were novel yet familiar, exotic yet accessible. At a time of war, internment, and segregation they simultaneously solidified and challenged racial cartographies that would emplace race.

One of the most creative communicative strategies of German twentieth-century political song has been narrative role-play. From the songs of Kurt Tucholsky and Walter Mehring in Weimar cabaret during the 1920s to the dramatic monologues of Franz Josef Degenhardt in the 1960s and beyond, singers have assumed identifiable roles to parody the language, mannerisms, and characteristics of known establishment social types. Role play has also been evident in the narrative identities constructed by singers and performers, either by means of literary association or by association with certain political ideas or stances, as in the case of Ernst Busch embodying the proletarian worker. This article examines different types of role-play, including that of Hans-Eckard Wenzel and Steffen Mensching who, in their 1980s performances, assumed the ironic masks of clowns, with which they projected an alternative ‘carnival’ vision of society in the German Democratic Republic. David Robb is Senior Lecturer in German at Queen's University of Belfast. He is an experienced songwriter and performing musician, the author of Zwei Clowns im Lande des verlorenen Lachens: das Liedertheater Wenzel & Mensching (1998) and the editor of Protest Song in East and West Germany since the 1960s (2007).

The Dresden Dolls are a punk-cabaret band that use their music to delve into diverse and taboo subject matter including sexual assault, abortion, and trauma. Despite the morose and grotesque imagery invoked by their lyrics, this paper advocates for the therapeutic effects of catharsis as encouraged by The Dresden Dolls. This essay provides an overview of the applications of catharsis in the arts and psychotherapy, explores how the musical elements and performance contexts of punk-cabaret elicit catharsis, and develops a contemporary theory of catharsis as it pertains to the music of The Dresden Dolls. In considering manifestations of trauma and healing in the songs “Missed Me,” “Mandy Goes to Med School,” and “Lonesome Organist Rapes Page Turner,” this paper illustrates how, despite the potential challenges of confronting trauma through music, the approach of The Dresden Dolls is ultimately effective in cultivating catharsis and encouraging healing for their listeners.

If postmodernism can be considered ahistorically, as a stylistic category operative at any time and in any place, then there are many older works that suddenly seem to speak strongly to our present age. This paper argues the case for taking Erik Satie as a postmodernist: his music is marked by bricolage (the E-driophthalma movement from Embryons desséchés, 1913, borrows a theme, according to the score, "from a celebrated mazurka by Schubert"); by polystylism (the cabaret songs written for Vincent Hyspa, or Parade with its quotation from Irving Berlin); and by materialism of the signifier (what Satie calls furniture music).

The Cabaret Songs of William Bolcom and Arnold Weinstein merge characteristics of European cabaret song and art song with characteristics of American popular song to create a modern American form of cabaret song which generates a complete theatrical characterization in each piece. Aspects of European cabaret song evident in these songs include satire, parody, and directness and intimacy of presentation. Independence of the piano, partnership of the piano and voice, and effective word setting and word painting are qualities identified with European art song which appear in these Cabaret Songs. Elements of American popular song woven into these works include jazz figurations, quasi-improvisatory sections, musical theater style, and the presence of complete theater "scenes" in each piece. These songs are derived from a multiplicity of styles which have become part of the American vernacular and run the gamut from Negro spiritual to pachanga. These Cabaret Songs provide the classically trained singer with the opportunity to experience and perform in a popular idiom. William Bolcom's writing demonstrates his fluid integration of diverse musical styles which reflect the richness of the mosaic which is the United States of America.

Friedrich Hollaender (1896-1976) was one of the most prolific composers of cabaret song literature in Berlin between 1918 and 1933. Beginning with his work at the literary-political cabarets of the early 1920s, including Max Reinhardt’s Schall und Rauch, Trude Hesterburg’s Wilde Bühne, and Rosa Valetti’s Café Größenwahn and continuing through the cabaret revues presented at Hollaender’s own Tingel-Tangel-Theater in the early 1930s, Hollaender wrote over 200 cabaret songs. A classically trained composer who studied with Engelbert Humperdinck, Hollaender ultimately found his niche in creating cabaret songs that clearly evoked the mood and environment expressed in the texts he set. In this way, Hollaender elevated and expanded the expressive power of music in the cabaret. At the same time, Hollaender did not revolutionize the cabaret song. Instead, he worked within the traditional framework of the cabaret song, adapting his compositional style to fit the expectations of the genre. Cabaret songs privilege the clear expression and declamation of the text. Thus, most cabaret songs exhibit a simple musical framework. Performers often spoke or intoned the text rather than singing the melody, and as a result, cabaret songs often double the melodic line in the accompaniment so that it can be heard and recognized during the performance. This practice differs markedly from art song, in which the melody and accompaniment serve as equal partners in expressing the text as a unified musical work and the singer is expected to sing the melody provided by the composer. Much of Hollaender’s work in the cabaret involved an effort to infuse the cabaret song with the expressive musical force of the art song without altering the traditional performance practice, the freedom to intone the text typical of the cabaret, and the simplified harmony and formal structure of cabaret songs. Hollaender’s ability to immediately capture the essence of the song texts in music is what ultimately made him successful. He also demonstrated an ability to adapt to the swiftly evolving tastes and expectations of cabaret audiences during the tumultuous Weimar Era. His adherence to a philosophy of music for the cabaret that would “explode in a lightning flash” and create a mood that would be “present in the first beats,“ along with his flexibility in responding to the evolving taste of the public allowed Hollaender to enjoy a sustained, successful career in the cabaret. His enormous output of cabaret songs is a testament to his effectiveness and success as a composer, writer, and producer in Berlin cabaret theatres. The purpose of the study is to understand how Hollaender’s work elevated the expressive force of the musical settings for cabaret songs through the analysis of the text and the music of his cabaret songs. This study explores representative examples of Hollaender’s cabaret songs composed for Berlin theaters between 1919-1933. The songs were primarily selected to demonstrate the wide variety of musical expression Hollaender was able to achieve in his song settings within the confines of traditional cabaret song forms, particularly the couplet and the role chanson. A wide variety of subject matter is covered in these cabaret song settings, from political and social satire to adapted folktales, and from playful character pieces to defiant antimilitarist statements and poignant illustrations of poverty and hardship. In addition, the cabaret songs included in the study emerge from significant collaborative relationships the composer developed, most notably his early collaborations in literary-political cabaret theaters with satirist and poet Kurt Tucholsky, Dada author Walter Mehring, and performer and first wife Blandine Ebinger. Finally, songs were chosen from throughout the time Hollaender composed music for the cabaret in order to demonstrate the changing landscape of the cabaret as time progressed. As a result, a significant number of songs in the study emerge from Hollaender’s late cabaret revues, programs of songs, skits and other acts loosely organized around a theme or idea, for which the composer wrote both the text and the music. Because the cabaret by its nature offered commentary on contemporary society, the study includes examples that demonstrate the evolving political and social climate in Germany as expressed in the cabaret song texts. For instance, Hollaender’s cabaret songs written in collaboration with Kurt Tucholsky in 1919-1920 frequently criticize Gustav Noske and the use of paramilitary Freikorps to quell dissent in the fledgling Weimar Republic. By the time of Hollaender’s 1931 cabaret revue Spuk in der Villa Stern, however, Hollaender’s political satire criticizes and lampoons National Socialist rhetoric and caricatures Adolf Hitler. Finally, the songs included in the discussion were also chosen in part due to the availability of musical scores, texts, and recordings. Whenever possible, recordings of the original performers, including Blandine Ebinger, Paul Graetz, and Claire Waldoff were consulted in order to understand performance practices used in Berlin cabarets during the Weimar era. Recordings of modern performers, chiefly Ute Lemper, Tim Fischer, and Jody Karen Applebaum were also explored. Many of the original performers were actors rather than singers, and their style of interpreting their songs with a mixture of spoken declamation and singing demonstrates the importance of clearly expressing the text and its emotional content and creating a complete characterization in the presentation of the song. This style of performing did not diminish Hollaender’s contribution as a composer, but rather created a multilayered hybrid of speech, melody, harmony and rhythm that set for many the standard for excellence in the Weimar era cabaret song. Literal English translations of the songs presented for the study were developed in order to facilitate the discussion of how Hollaender’s music specifically evokes the mood and expression of the text. In addition, the study includes explanations and annotations of the events, historical figures, and cultural icons that are peppered throughout these texts. Because cabaret songs are by their nature a product of the contemporary society out of which they emerge, a basic understanding of the time period is essential to fully comprehend these works. Hollaender’s cabaret songs often employ a Berlin dialect, use colloquial expressions, and assume an understanding of contemporary society in the 1920s that is no longer common knowledge nearly a century later. As a result, the detailed study and translation of the texts were essential to understanding Hollaender’s cabaret song settings. This investigation demonstrates how Hollaender evoked a variety of specific moods and ideas in his cabaret song settings through an economy of musical means. Although his music adhered to the conventions and traditions of the cabaret song by employing simple harmonic structures and an almost exclusive use of verse-refrain song form, the composer effectively used dissonance, rhythmic motives, chromaticism, mode-mixture, melodic shape, and other compositional techniques to great expressive effect that clearly reflected the wide variety of environments and moods described in his texts. The result is that the text and music are wedded in Hollaender’s cabaret song settings in such a way that they become a unified expressive art form.

The Cabaret Songs of W.H. Auden and Benjamin Britten merge characteristics of a multitude of styles. The purpose of this document is to investigate the fusion of styles making up the Cabaret Songs and to analyze them from a performer’s perspective with the goal of providing collaborative partnerships with an historical and musical foundation on which to build their interpretation of the Cabaret Songs and thereby serve as a basis for informed performance decisions. Chapter 1 includes biographical information for both Benjamin Britten and W.H. Auden focusing on how the two artists met and discusses their working relationship during the seven years in which they collaborated. Also included is a short section of relevant biographical information on the singer/actress Hedli Anderson for whom the Cabaret Songs were created. Chapter 2 includes a brief overview of the history of the European cabaret-artistique and examines the creation and development of this art form. Examples of cabaret songs from other composers, namely Erik Satie, Kurt Weill, Friedrich Hollaender, and Noel Coward are given to show the musical soil of the era, from which the Britten and Auden pieces sprouted. Chapter 3 discusses the Cabaret Songs on a song-by-song basis and provides a musical analysis from a performer’s perspective, outlining the different musical influences in each song and investigating the cross-pollination of musical styles. The songs will be examined for characteristics of traditional European art song, operatic elements, American popular song elements, European dance rhythms and elements of original European cabaret.

My MFA portfolio consists of two scripts for performance and a research essay exploring the methods and process of writing these. Songs My Mother Taught Me is a one-woman cabaret piece; set in 1972, it explores hippie culture in New Zealand and a young women‟s search for independence. This portfolio contains two versions of this script. Both versions of this piece have been performed. In Defence of Love is a play for three actors, each of whom plays one aspect of an abused woman trying to find her way out of a destructive relationship.

Music and Theatre have always captivated me. As a child, my parents would take me to live performances and cinematic shows and I would sit rapt, watching the theatrical events and emotional moments unfold before my eyes. Movie musicals and live shows that combined music and theatre were my favorite, especially theatrical banter and improvisation or sketch comedy. Some of my favorite youthful memories were my annual family summer trips to Las Vegas to visit my grandparents for six weeks. As a youngster, I got to experience the "old school" Las Vegas, replete with extravaganza, spectacle, cabaret, circus, lounge and nightclub acts, stand-up comedy, intimate revues, and all things marketed under the guise of entertainment, art, or both. Those summers, while not overtly planned as academic or educational in nature, proved, in retrospect, to be the training ground for what was to become my passion: the art of the cabaret genre. As a person who has always loved theatrical diversity, I am drawn to cabaret as an art form. Anything that fuses other forms interests me, and cabaret amalgamates many of the artistic forms I have grown to love. I come from a unique background of classical, jazz, musical theatre and pop styles, and have studied these styles in both the piano and vocal arena. The cabaret genre allows me to realize fully the stylistic variety of performance techniques with which I excel. My mother is a classical singer and my father a jazz pianist; during my youth they would perform at the piano, "meeting in the middle" so to speak in the world of Musical Theatre, through the fusion of cabaret, classical, jazz, and pop. Growing up hearing a song like "Summertime," from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, equally artistically rendered as both a classical aria and a jazz tune in my home was rich fodder for the vital informal education I received by being the offspring of musicians. It is due to this musical legacy that was passed on to me through my parents that I learned to explore the myriad of possibilities one can achieve through artistic musical and theatrical interpretation. Beyond the freedom of stylistic variety, cabaret performance also allows conventions such as direct interaction in the form of the proverbial "lowered fourth wall," allowing me to use my improvisational acting and interactive skill set as well as my musical skills. Cabaret is generally more intimate and personal in nature and I enjoy the camaraderie cabaret affords. Cabaret is interactive and intellectual and I am drawn to those aspects; I like the fusion of interactive banter and intellectual artistry. Also appealing to me is the "insider" sense cabaret not only allows but also encourages. Recalling my youthful memories of the Vegas shows in which the performer spoke directly to audience members, I remember the sense of belonging I felt at the recognition of some of the inside jokes. I knew I wanted to be involved with any aspect of music and theatre that would allow me the freedom to go with the moment, to reach people differently on any given day, to change with the times, and adapt to my audience and to the shifting world around me. I knew I had found a home in this intimate, insular, interactive, and intellectual art form known as cabaret. For these reasons and more I have chosen the genre of cabaret to be my intended thesis research project. I will produce, direct, and perform in a cabaret show, which will be the thesis performance. For the performance aspect of my thesis, in collaboration with my thesis partner, Josephine Leffner, I will perform a one-act chronological, historical, and stylistically varied cabaret show. The show will include material garnered from historical research of the cabaret genre, specifically settling on some of the famous women, songs, stories, lives, and important contributions. The cabaret will cover information, music, and spoken-word art from cabaret's inception in the Paris Montmartre district in 1881 to its height in Germany during the Weimar Republic. The show will culminate with cabaret's insurgence into American culture up to and including the state of American cabaret today. While my performance will focus mainly on American cabaret, a portion of the show will explore cabaret's European roots. Creating and performing this show will educate me further on the genre itself, as well as expand my performing skills through the varied styles in which I will perform within the realm of a single evening's entertainment. Creating and performing the show will also challenge me as a producer, director, promotional and administrative coordinator, music director, arranger, vocal director, collaborator, vocalist, pianist, actor, and writer. The show is intended as a kind of "Cabaret 101," in that the intended audience is treated to a night of variety entertainment with some historical background on the genre of cabaret. The audience is not expected to have any prior academic or experiential knowledge of cabaret in order to understand or enjoy the show. The cabaret intellectual will also be able to enjoy the show, as the songs, poems, skits, and sketches are intended to amuse and delight both the novice and the experienced cabaretist. For the research and analysis portion of my thesis monograph document I will provide information on cabaret's roots in France and Germany, as well as include informative research on American cabaret, its history and its current trends. I will have several chapters dedicated to the historical research and to other items such as the formatted libretto, documentation of a performance report from my thesis committee head, and a list of references used throughout the research and libretto chapters. I will include a structural and role analysis of the show itself and my contributions to it as outlined by the parameters of my graduate studies program. Several chapters of appendices will be included as information pertinent to the show such as costume, props, lighting lists as well as band and technical needs for the show itself. An introduction and conclusion will be created to bookend my document solidly and reveal myself as a person as well as a performer. This section will include reflective information on my intentions, triumphs, and tribulations, and will be codified through the opening and concluding perspectives. Through the process of writing the thesis monograph document I will create a public and personal record of the process, research, performance challenges, and decisions made throughout this journey. This document will be used as historical help to me should I need to refer to my thesis for later personal or professional use. The document will also be on record for the UCF theatre department, as I apply not only my performance training (as exhibited through the show itself) but also the research and critical thinking skills required of a masters degree candidate at a conservatory training program such as this one. Beyond its use for myself or for the department, I write this monograph document for others whose love and interest in studying the genre of cabaret match my own.
M.F.A.
Department of Theatre
Arts and Humanities
Theatre

Cabaret as a genre has influenced and is influenced by musical theatre. As cabaret has evolved throughout history, musical theatre has often paralleled its journey. Cabaret thrived before the term "musical theatre" was coined and suffered hard times during the Golden Age of Musical Theatre. The correlation of the two genres cannot be denied, and exploring cabaret history will reveal how deeply the connection lies. My collaborator Debbie Tedrick and I will attempt to define cabaret through a two-woman cabaret show we will write, produce, and perform together. The show, Black Cats, Berlin, Broadway and Beyond, will be a one-act historical look at the genre of cabaret. It will include material garnered from historical research of the cabaret genre, specifically focusing on some of the famous women, songs, stories, lives, and important contributions. The cabaret show will cover information and art from cabaret's inception in the Paris Montmartre district in 1881 to its height in Germany during the Weimar Republic and will culminate with cabaret's insurgence into American culture up to, and including, the state of American cabaret today. American cabaret will be emphasized, but a portion of the show will explore American cabaret's European roots. My thesis will explore the triumphs and tribulations of putting together the show. As the culmination of my UCF studies, this project will test my abilities as a librettist, performer, creative artist, director, and collaborator. This thesis will include the actual show performances as well as a written monograph document recording the project's journey from its inception to conclusion.
M.F.A.
Department of Theatre
Arts and Humanities
Theatre

MUSICAL THEATRE HANDBOOK FOR THE ACTOR By Maggie Elizabeth Marlin, MFA A Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2009 Major Director: David S. Leong Chairman, Department of Theatre Musical Theatre is a performance style deeply woven into the fabric of the American theatre. We live in time and social climate where over half of the productions open on Broadway right now are musicals. If actor training institutions profess a mission to prepare their students for a career in the entertainment industry, why are so many components of an actor’s skill set left to the side and considered peripheral? One can make the argument that their actor training program is exclusively for the theatre, and even more specifically for straight plays for the theatre. Of course, what your career preparation institution chooses to target is your prerogative and as long as that is clear to the incoming students who wish to specialize only in that one faction of the artist’s opportunities for work then my argument is moot. However, if you believe that actor training has a duty to prepare actors to work in an ever changing and transforming field and to be competitive in meeting the demands of various media, among many other areas of focus you should consider preparing your students to develop their craft for musical theatre as legitimately as you would for a classical or contemporary straight play. In this thesis I propose an approach to creating a role for musical theatre using as an example my character development technique for the role of Sally Bowles from a recent production of Cabaret. My desire is to illustrate a seamless continuation of the actor’s craft to meet the additional requirements of skills necessary to perform in a musical. Rather than signifying a separate style of acting for musical theatre which is identified as being altogether different and often dismissed as inferior to the craft of acting in a straight play, I hope to challenge the reader to consider a new perspective in which the foundation of musical theatre performance is built on the fundamentals of acting in a straight play.

Kabaret literacki—’literary cabaret’, a specific form of cabaret consisting of comedy sketches, monologues, and songs with satirical social and political content—was a revolutionary phenomenon in terms of Polish culture, Jewish culture, and notions of Polish national identity. It flourished mainly in Warsaw between the world wars —that is, in the capital of a newly independent nation that was also a great Jewish metropolis with a third of its residents identifying themselves as Jews or ‘of Jewish background’....

This chapter introduces eight cabaret songs by Keith Humble. These songs are quirkily original and distinctly offbeat. Humble has said that, rather than representing cabaret tradition, the pieces are redolent of the period in France just after the Second World War, when groups of artists engaged in political and existential discussion. The texts themselves concern the eternal themes of love and death. As may be expected, piano parts are especially striking and wide-ranging in character. The work’s history is somewhat chequered, however: Humble originally wrote five songs, but added others later, adjusting their order over time. The last is by far the most elaborate.

This chapter details how Mordechai Gebirtig engraved his name on the history of Jewish cabaret in Poland between the wars. Every singer had his songs in his or her repertoire. These songs spread from the cabaret stages (kleynkunstbine) of Łódź and Warsaw to all of Poland and to the entire Jewish world. Even today they are alive on the stage and in Jewish homes; they are an indispensable part of the repertoire of Jewish singers. They are also arousing increasing interest among non-Jewish audiences in Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and the United States. Since the destruction of European Jewry, these songs have become a crucial means of learning about Jewish folklore and the life of the Jewish poor, matters inadequately recorded in Yiddish literature and other sources.

This chapter explores Australian musician and composer Brett Dean’s Poems and Prayers (2006, revised 2011). These five songs form a highly distinctive showpiece, containing elements reminiscent of cabaret. The style is eclectic, within a ‘friendly atonal’ mode. Intervals will need careful tuning and rhythms are often elliptical. Each song could hardly be more different. The sharp, mordant texts have more than a hint of irony and bitterness, and the range of moods projected requires a singer of considerable artistry and poise as well as excellent diction. The first three songs (‘Literature’, ‘A Child Is a Grub’, and ‘Prayer I’) are brief, but highly concentrated. The vocal range throughout is comfortable and eminently practicable, avoiding extremes. Declamatory speech occurs in the fourth (‘Equality’), and the last movement (‘Prayer’) is almost entirely in Sprechstimme.

This chapter assesses Julian Tuwim's Utwory nieznane (Unknown Works), the title of which is somewhat misleading. The book is largely made up of cabaret pieces that were performed and known to the public; they simply were never published in written form. Still, the book's publication in 1999 was an important event, not only for poetry lovers and historians of literature, but also from a Jewish perspective. Jewish topics appear prominently and in many forms in this collection of poems, facsimiles, juvenilia, cabaret skits and songs, and private letters from various periods of the poet's life. This is in clear contradiction to the stereotype, predominant in Jewish historiography, of the pre-war Polish Jewish intelligentsia as thoroughly assimilated and uprooted. Tuwim's example demonstrates that the opposite was the case. Like many other writers, he was in constant dialogue with his Jewishness, defending it when attacked, but also critical of Jewish obscurantism.

Dring’s early career is traced through her commissions for BBC radio and television broadcasts, of which the most significant is The Fair Queen of Wu, a ballet for singers and chamber ensemble with choreography by Felicity Gray. During these years, her first publications appeared, with an emphasis on piano music (for solo piano and two pianos) and her Three Shakespeare Songs. Dring’s music was also performed in recitals, including her recently published piano works and a selection of her songs (published and unpublished). The most favorable reviews are found for her Festival Scherzo (“Nights in the Gardens of Battersea”), written to commemorate the Festival of Britain. Also discussed is her one-act opera, Cupboard Love, the music written for the Christmas plays produced by Angela Bull’s Cygnet Company, and her first performance as a singer at the RCM’s Union “At Home.” A fine example of Dring’s cabaret style is found in the discussion and analysis of her song, “The Lady Composer.” In her personal life, the chapter documents her marriage to Roger Lord, his career as a musician (principal oboe in the London Symphony Orchestra for thirty-three years), and the birth of her son, Jeremy.

This chapter describes Stanisław Wielanek's Szlagiery starej Warszawy: Śpiewnik andrusowski (Hits of Old Warsaw: A Songbook of the Streetwise). Wielanek is the leader of Kapela Warszawska, a street band that usually performs for tips in an underpass near the Hotel Forum in the centre of Warsaw. They play mainly pre-war Warsaw urban folk music. Wielanek's 500-page volume contains a richness of material that is not only musical—including both scores and lyrics—but also literary and iconographic: from cabaret monologues and vignettes, jokes, bon mots, and biographical and contextual information, to drawings, posters, photographs, and postcards. Alongside old Warsaw songs and criminal or lumpenproletarian ballads, the book includes a separate section on Jewish folklore in Polish which is nearly 100 pages long, and another fifty-page section on Lwów.

The introduction defines “political action” and “solidarity” theoretically, as frameworks for organizing and dispersing the relationship between music and protest. It also introduces the Polish opposition to state socialism, giving an overview of the political agents (activists, critics, citizens, priests, bureaucrats, Party members, journalists) who are the main protagonists of this history and who guide the musics and scenes upon which the book focuses. One cabaret anthem, Jan Pietrzak’s “So That Poland Will Be Poland,” serves as an orientation point. The song’s text, key performances in Warsaw, and use by the US Information Agency for propaganda give insight into national and international perspectives on the Solidarity movement and its historiography from the 1980s into the present.